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Science

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Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.
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  1. [FIRST AID – RAILWAYS.] 

    Ministère des chemins de fer, postes et télégraphes. Administration des chemins de fer de l’état. Manuel...

    Gand, F.& R. Buyck Frères, 1912. 

    First separate edition, as far as we are aware with no institutional holdings, of this guide to first aid in a railway context, published by the state railway administration of Belgium. 

    £195

  2. FISHER, George.

    The instructor: or, young man’s best companion…to which is added the family’s best companion…

    London, for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, [not before 1735].

    Second edition, (first, 1727). ‘Volumes entitled The Young Man’s companion exist in many versions and go back to the 1680s when William Mather produced the first of them. They are compendiums of useful information, intended for self-improvement. They concentrate on English, Mathematics, including...

    £850

  3. FRANZ, Wolfgang.

    Animalium historia sacra, in qua plerorumque animalium praecipuae proprietates in gratiam studiosorum theologiae...

    Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1643.

    First Jansson edition (fifth overall). First published in Wittenberg in 1612, the Animalium historia sacra is the most successful work of the Lutheran theologian Wolfgang Franz (1564 – 1628), providing a careful study of the creatures appearing in the Bible, both real and mythical.

    £75

  4. FREUD, Sigmund.

    Die Zukunft einer Illusion.

    Leipzig/Vienna/Zürich, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927.

    First edition, in the first issue of 5000 copies, of Freud’s work on the origins and future development of religion (the ‘illusion’ of the title), centred on the notion of religion as, in one form or another, wish-fulfilment and the longing for a paternal figure as a response to a realisation...

    £85

  5. GABARO, Antonio. 

    Alla pregiatissima Signora Domenica Schiavon Menato nella fausta occasione del suo primo parto, in argomento...

    Padua, ‘Nella Tipografia del Seminario’, 1820. 

    First and only edition, very rare, of a scathing and sexist condemnation of ‘inhuman’ women who do not breastfeed their own children, dedicated to Domenica Schiavon Menato, ‘an example to all women’, on the occasion of the birth of her first child. 

    £380

  6. GALILEI, Galileo. 

    Dialogo … sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano. 

    Florence, G.B. Landini, 1632. 

    First edition of one of the most famous works in the history of scientific thought, Galileo’s defence of Copernican heliocentrism, which led to his trial and imprisonment for heresy. 

    £160000

  7. GALILEI, Galileo.

    Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze attenenti alla mecanica & i movimenti locali...

    Leiden, Elzevier, 1638.

    First edition of the first modern textbook of physics and the foundation of the science of mechanics; a very important copy, owned and annotated by Pierre Varignon, intimate friend of Newton, Leibniz, and the Bernoullis.

    £195000

  8. GALILEI, Galileo, and Carlo MANOLESSI (editor). 

    Opere. 

    Bologna, heirs Dozza, [1655–] 1656. 

    A substantial volume of Galileo’s works, comprising most of the first volume of the first collected edition, edited by Carlo Manolessi.  The edition contained nineteen separate treatises, each with its own title, in two volumes, but is rarely found complete; present here are all but two of...

    £2500

  9. GARSAULT, François-Alexandre de.

    Le nouveau parfait maréchal, ou la connoissance générale et universelle du cheval, divisé...

    Paris, Moreau for Hochereau, 1770.

    Fourth edition of one of the most popular French horsemanship manuals. First published in 1741 as a successor to Solleysel’s famous Parfait maréchal and reprinted in at least sixteen editions over the following century, Le nouveau parfait maréchal ‘is considered to be the best...

    £650

  10. GASPARIN, Agénor Étienne, Comte de.

    Des tables tournantes du surnaturel en général et des esprits par le Cte Agénor de Gasparin.

    Paris, Bonaventure and Ducessois for E. Dentu, 1854.

    Scarce first edition of Gasparin’s early experiments in table-turning – a form of séance in which tables appear to rotate or levitate of their own accord – which would prove highly controversial and integral to the nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement.

    £1500

  11. GASPAROLI, Carlo Maria.

    Dialectica sive manuductio ad logicam dictata a R. P. Bar. De Somere. Scripta a me Car. Mar. Gasparoli....

    Antwerp, 1753.

    A handsome manuscript comprising a thorough course in logic and dialectic, executed by a student at the Jesuit college in Antwerp, and illustrated with an extraordinary decorative programme inspired by printed emblems.

    £4750

  12. GAYOT DE PITAVAL (Conseil).

    Question d’estat: fille reclamée par deux meres.

    Paris, Nicolas le Gras, 1716.

    First edition of this account by the famous advocate François Gayot de Pitaval (1673–1743) of a 1709 case, where a midwife had substituted a new-born girl who was then claimed both by the real mother and the woman to whom the baby had been given. Pitaval’s account details the principles by...

    £350

  13. GIBELLI, Giacinto. 

    Due dissertazioni sopra li vantaggi, che si ottengono in medicina dall’uso del ferro per guarire molte infermità,...

    Genoa, Paolo Scionico, 1767. 

    First and only edition, rare, of these treatises on the medicinal benefits of iron supplements, with accounts of their use by the author in curing over 450 patients of maladies ranging from anorexia to melancholy. 

    £600

  14. GIOVANNI BATTISTA DA NAPOLI. 

    Opera et trattato, che insegna molti dignissimi secreti contra la peste, con li quali subito si...

    [Venice, 1556?] 

    Rare second revised edition (first 1527) of this work offering advice against the plague by the Augustinian friar Giovanni Battista, interleaved and annotated with unpublished Latin notes on the subject. 

    £2750

  15. [GRANT, Charles, Vicomte de Vaux.]

    Recueil d’Essais, ou précis des opinions, et des mémoires, du Vte de *** …

    A Londres: De l’Imprimerie de T. Spilsbury & Fils. 1793.

    An interesting tract volume, containing the scarce collected thoughts of Charles Grant, vicomte de Vaux (a subscriber’s copy), a fine illustrated guide to Nîmes and the Pont du Gard, and three pamphlets relating to a controversy in the medical faculty in Edinburgh.

    £1500

  16. GRIFFITHS, William, and Henry BUNBURY (illustrator).

    A practical Treatise on Farriery, deduced from the Experience...

    Wrexham, R. Marsh, [1784].

    First edition of this informative treatise by the groom to the Williams Wynn family, from the library of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn’s political ally, William Mostyn Owen. A farrier to the Williams Wynns of Wynnstay since at least the 1740s, Griffiths dedicates the work to his second master from...

    £1100

  17. [GROUX, Charles Jacques (engraver).]

    Planches relatives a l’instruction concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres des...

    Paris, Magimel, ‘An X’ [1801].

    Second edition, expanded, of a set of French Revolutionary plates for the instruction of the cavalry. Comprising over one hundred and fifty copper-engraved plates showing cavalry horses, equipment, and manoeuvres, the present work follows a smaller publication by Magimel of the same title, issued...

    £275

  18. [GUARINI, Giambattista Lascaris].

    Ragionamenti filosofici.

    Rome, Gioacchino Puccinelli, 1785 [-6].

    Only edition, very uncommon, of this collection of 33 essays on scientific and philosophical subjects, published with the aspiration to provide a complete course of physics and philosophy. The work is divided into four parts. The first deals with materialism and idealism, the physical attributes of bodies,...

    £1500

  19. HEADRICK, Rev.

    James. View of the Mineralogy, Agriculture, Manufactures and Fisheries of the Island of Arran. With Notices of Antiquities,...

    Edinburgh: Printed by D. Willison, for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh, and John Murray, 32. Fleet-Street, London. 1807.

    First edition. The eccentric clergyman and geologist James Headrick (1759-1841) pursued a lifelong interest in the natural sciences and for a time found employment with Sir John Sinclair, probably working on The Statistical Account of Scotland. He was disappointed in repeated attempts to secure an academic...

    £250

  20. HENNEQUIN, Pierre.

    Nouveau cours de rhétorique, à l’usage de la jeunesse des deux sexes; dédié à sa Majesté l’Impératrice...

    Moscow, Auguste Semen, 1818.

    Only edition, very uncommon, of this guide to rhetoric by the Moscow-based French grammarian Pierre Hennequin (1772–1849), explicitly designed for both sexes and dedicated to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828).

    £1250